TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH GROUP CORE 011 ? TRANSLATIONAL PATHOLOGY SHARED RESOURCE PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Obtaining, processing and staining of tissue specimens and quantitation of stained sections are central to the performance of modern cancer research. The Translational Pathology Shared Resource (TPSR) provides Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) investigators with a full range of pathology services and technologies to support the cancer research effort at Vanderbilt. The VICC TPSR capitalizes on Vanderbilt expertise, bringing together the capabilities of key service providers in a collaborative effort to provide a complete cancer tissue package for VICC investigators ? research histology and pathology, comparative and animal pathology and tissue acquisition ? by leveraging the capabilities of Western Division of the NCI-funded Cooperative Human Tissue Network (CHTN) and digital histology. Through a partnership with the CHTN, the TPSR coordinates the procurement and processing of human tissues obtained from both the operating room and clinical settings under IRB-approved protocols. The TPSR provides full research histopathology services, including processing, embedding, sectioning and staining of both human and animal model tissues. The TPSR also performs a wide range of automated immunostaining protocols that can be customized to investigator needs. Both paraffin and frozen sectioning of specimens can be performed for investigators. The core now houses a robotic system for automated assembly of tissue microarrays from multiple tissue blocks, which provides a superior new service. The core also provides investigators with access to laser capture microdissection instrumentation for isolation of discrete cell populations from tissue sections. As an adjunct to the array of staining and immunostaining procedures available, the TPSR offers digital imaging within a new facility, which provides automated scanning of both brightfield and fluorescence staining as well as quantitation of digital images for performance of true quantitative pathological measures. In addition to tissue resources for investigators working with animal models, the comparative pathology service also provides a full line of clinical pathology diagnostic services and pathology phenotyping of mouse models for VICC investigators. Finally, the animal and human pathologists provide consultative services in both human and veterinary pathology for cancer research investigators. The TPSR provides the full range of pathology technologies and expertise to support all aspects of cancer research related to the analysis of human tissue specimens and animal models to facilitate cancer discovery.